The present invention relates to management of time-varying networks, and more specifically, to network management using hierarchical and multi-scenario graphs.
Networks comprised of many interconnected components must be represented in computational form for purposes of data interchange, analysis, and simulation, for example. Exemplary networks include gas pipelines, electrical utility networks, electro-mechanical networks such as aircraft systems, transportation networks, and telecommunication networks. Most real-world networks include time-varying aspects such that parameter values or structural elements (or both) may be time-dependent. Representing such networks as a series of snapshots that convey the time dependency requires a large amount of memory. Yet, representing such networks incrementally (e.g., using a software revision control system) is computationally challenging.